‘An inside job’

WASHINGTON—Parents of two of the four men killed in last year’s terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, blasted the Obama administration on Thursday, saying the government has ignored, rebuffed, and lied to them about what happened on Sept. 11, 2012.

Patricia Smith, whose only son, Sean Smith, died in the attack, called out President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and former Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice for not answering questions and blaming the assault on a YouTube video.

“Every one of them said it was the video,” an emotional Smith said she was told days after the attack. “They knew it wasn’t the video, so they all lied to me.”

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Smith’s comments came during the second portion of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Benghazi and followed scrutiny of the Accountability Review Board (ARB) report released in December. Republican lawmakers grilled Ret. Adm. Michael Mullen and Ambassador Thomas Pickering, co-chairs of the ARB, for nearly six hours, asking how an internal probe could be considered objective.

“It looks like an inside job,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. “The Department of State investigating the Department of State.”

Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Pickering, who spent 42 years working for the State Department, said they were proud of their work and stood by the findings. Pickering called the report “full, fair, and free” and said he “had no sense anywhere that there was any conflict of interest,” even though he personally knew many of the people he was interviewing.

“This was not a gotcha panel,” Pickering said. “Three were from outside and only two of us were from inside.”

“Obviously this wasn’t a gotcha panel, because nobody was ‘gotcha’ed,’” retorted Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the Oversight committee.

The two men said they were given “unfettered” access during the investigation, conducting more than 100 interviews, including “key personnel” who were on the ground in Benghazi. Issa pressed for answers on why his committee has not had the same access: He said the panel has been blocked from speaking with anyone who was on the ground in Benghazi and “even the names to the greatest extent possible have been withheld from this committee.”

Mullen said the committee should be given equal access, but it’s something “Congress will have to work out” with the executive branch.

At the end of the hearing, Issa announced he today subpoenaed two people who were in Libya at the time of the attack, John Martinek and Alec Henderson, “because the State Department has repeatedly lied, saying these individuals were available.” Within an hour of the announcement, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who has 176 cosponsors on a bill that would create a Select Committee on Benghazi, released a statement applauding the move as “long overdue.”

“Why has it taken more than a year for these first subpoenas to be issued?” Wolf asked. “Will another year go by before the next subpoenas are issued?”

During the hearing, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, read a list of relevant witnesses the ARB didn’t interview. Several members wanted to know why former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wasn’t interviewed, but Mullen and Pickering said they didn’t feel it was necessary. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said Clinton suggested the Benghazi investigation is targeting her because she’s a woman.

Mullen also acknowledged he gave Mills a “heads up” call shortly before the ARB interviewed Charlene Lamb—one of the four employees the State Department later put on leave—whom Mullen thought “wouldn’t represent the department well.” Mullen insisted the call didn’t include any coaching, but Republican committee members repeatedly asked how a process could be objective when the body being investigated gets a “heads up” phone call about things that might not go smoothly.

“Democrats have asserted the ARB was independent—it represents closure,” Jordan told me after the hearing. But “the most important person next to the secretary is Cheryl Mills and he gives her a heads up that the very first witness coming in front of this committee, just a month after this tragedy in Benghazi, is not going to be a good witness. … You can’t tip off the agency you’re investigating.”

Democrats and Republicans on the committee each released reports this week arguing both sides of the ARB report. One point of disagreement centers on whether or not backup forces were given a “stand down” order, which three whistleblowers in May said was the case. Democrats contend the command was never given, and at a Wednesday hearing, Patrick Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, said the same thing.

Mullen reiterated that U.S. military personnel could not have reached Benghazi in time to help. Charles Woods, father of murdered former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, smiled slightly while shaking his head from the front row behind the witnesses, clearly not buying Mullen’s assertion that it would have taken 10 to 20 hours to “plan a mission.”

“Gen. [Carter] Ham told the joint chiefs of staff the forces were available, but no orders to use them were given,” Woods later told the committee.

The administration’s “monstrously false narrative” after the Benghazi attacks only briefly came up during the first panel, but Patricia Smith was quick to bring it up when she moved to the witness table. She said Obama told her he would get back with her for an update on the investigation, but she never heard from him again.

After the hearing Smith, a San Diego resident, told me the meeting didn’t provide her with any answers. “I’m still waiting for the same answers [to questions] I’ve been asking since day one,” she said. “I still don’t have them. … Right now all I do is hurt.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. choked up as he he told the families, “There is no closure, but what I hope we can offer you is facts … the truth.”

Lawmakers asked no questions about reports that polygraphs and non-disclosure agreements are being used to intimidate people with knowledge of what happened in Benghazi—which Wolf confirmed on Monday during the launch of a Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi.

Two Republicans asked if the U.S. was involved in funneling arms to Turkey or Syria, but Pickering said, “Eh, I’m just not aware of it.”

I asked Smith what she knew about her son’s activities and she said he always jokingly told her if he explained what he was doing, he’d have to shoot her. She said she didn’t even know he was in Libya until she got a call at 12:30 a.m. informing her that her son had been killed.

Smith, who had her son at 38 after being told she could never have children, said, “My miracle baby was abandoned in Benghazi.”